


The Winter's Tale

by parsnips (trifles)



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Children, Fear, Gen, Marriage, Memories, Memory Alteration, Memory Charms, Memory Loss, Memory Related, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-04
Updated: 2008-05-04
Packaged: 2017-10-11 08:28:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/110395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trifles/pseuds/parsnips
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione performed a memory charm on her parents before the start of the seventh book. And she was indeed the cleverest witch of her age. But memory is complex, and magic uncertain, and she was, after all, very young.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Winter's Tale

**Author's Note:**

> Written/posted in 2008. Spoilers: _Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows_, but really only as much as what's given in the summary regardless.

  
When they reached Perth, it was like feeling a great beast had finally left their backs. Australia was in the midst of autumn, bright and lovely. Everything they'd wanted.

It was when Monica was unpacking the last box of clothes that she came across the maternity jumpers. Half a dozen, years out of fashion as far as these things went. She remembered, vaguely, packing them, but their last few days in Surrey had been so crazed... she'd packed everything without really checking to see what it was she was doing. They'd just wanted to be _gone_.

The dresses belled out to accommodate a figure several months along. Monica had never been pregnant.

"Wendell," she said later, "do you know where these came from?"

He gave a short glance from the corner of his eye, distracted by the paper. "Yours, dear."

"Are you sure? From when?"

He looked up and focused -- except not, not really, because didn't his eyes seem to dull a little? "You're right. I must've been mistaken. Did you get them from a friend? I think they might be too big for you."

"I don't know," Monica said. "I don't remember."

\--

She began to dream that night. When had she last dreamed?

There was a baby, bright-eyed, with curly brown hair. The dream was simple, almost meaningless. Monica just changed the baby's nappy -- the girl's nappy -- and then leaned down and kissed the girl's soft round stomach.

When Monica woke up, she could smell warm milk and baby powder and new-nappy plastic.

\--

Such mundane things. She started her new job at the dentist's on George Street. She kept the windows open to hear the street sounds, comfortingly different from England. It was important that it be different from England, and she couldn't remember why.

"Mum, Mum, Mum!"

She was at the window, staring below, looking for a curled head, and she didn't know why.

\--

"Wendell," she said. He was watching the telly, and didn't look up. Didn't hear.

"Wendell."

The name felt strange in her mouth.

\--

She dreamed again. Macbeth's witches, around a cauldron, but all young women with brown curls and short wands to stir the brew. Monica stepped into their magic circle. The women said, "Mum," as one voice, and they plucked out their wands, and they touched them to Monica's forehead and then they emptied her.

She woke. After that, her only dreams are these: a baby, laughing; a teenager crying in a dark bedroom; candles floating above a smiling child; wands; emptiness.

\--

"Was I ever..." Monica stopped. "Wendell." He didn't look up. She reached out and shook his shoulder, hard, and he turned to her annoyed, as if he'd been perfectly present the entire time.

"Wendell," she said again, "was I ever pregnant?"

He smiled, like she was joking. "You? You never wanted children. That was one of the conditions of you marrying me, actually."

"Why do I have those dresses?"

He frowned. "I wouldn't know, dear. They were in your closet."

She blinked. "We had separate closets?"

He blinked back. "I... I think so. Didn't we?"

They stared at one another.

\--

"England. We lived there?"

"In... in a house."

"Two story, or one?"

"Christ, I don't remember."

"Why are we here?"

"We've always wanted to be here."

"Yes, but _why_?"

"Was there something wrong with where we were before?"

"We were somewhere before?"

"Yes-- in a house, we remember a house."

"This house?"

"Was it this house?"

"How long have we lived in Australia?"

"It feels like we've always wanted to be here."

"But have we?"

"Wanted, or been here?"

"I don't know -- I _don't know_."

\--

Here are the facts as Monica and Wendell Wilkins have determined them, in a cold winter room that neither have left in three days:

England.

A girl.

Reality is bounded by experience. Together, if they can manage to remember one another, there is a chance.

(_Mum._)

But the first to look away destroys the world.

END


End file.
